Persistent Cookies vs. session cookies

[Andy Fish]

Hi all (please excuse the crosspost but I can't find an HTTP group as such)

I am trying to find out the difference between persistent cookies and
session cookies. I have found plenty of documentation saying what the
differences are from the user point of view, but I want to know how the
server and browser distinguish between the two types in terms of HTTP
protocol.

I have read RFC 2965 and the Java servlet programming documentation and I
can't find any information as to how I should specify (or detect) whether a
specific cookie is persistent or session.

Any clues please?

Andy

 

[Fredrik Lindner]

Read the cookie specification, and epecially the section about the cookie
expires field.
http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html

/Fredrik

 

[Andy Fish]

Thanks Fredrik,

Actually I had seen this document but I kind of skipped over it on the
grounds that it is (a) preliminary, (b) by netscape and (c) presumably quite
old. I was expecting some RFC or w3c document to give a definitive
statement. Anyway, I'm happy to accept it as the correct answer.

Thanks for the quick response - call me an optimist but IMHO usenet is as
good today as it's ever been.

 

[Fredrik Lindner]

Your points a, b and c are quite on the spot. I always treat the document as
a recomendation rather than a spec.

/Fredrik